Roast Whole Chicken

A couple nights ago I attempted to roast a whole chicken for only the second time in my life (the first being with Kev in college) and once again it turned out well with surprisingly little effort or preparation.

The only problem I had was determining when the bird was done. The recipe I followed (for cooking times at least ... I added a cut and juiced lemon to the inside and along with a couple cloves of garlic and a table spoon of rosemary) was from one of my favorite cooks books, The New Best Recipe. The books has tons of recipes along with detailed descriptions of all of the different ways they tried to make the dish before settling on this "best" one. Along with the recipes are lots of side notes about various cooking tools, preparation methods, etc. Its an all around solid cook book, if not a bit heavy.

The book's recipe called for the oven to be preheated to 350 (along with the roasting pan) and then to add the bird, one wing side up on a V-rack in the center of the oven. After 15 minutes, adjust the bird so that the other wing side is up. After another 15 minutes increase the temperature to 450 and turn the bird breast side up. It said to cook until the meat was 160/165 in various areas of the bird (~25 minutes). This was supposed to result in a not-dried-out bird with a good crispy skin.

Well the skin was crispy and a beautiful golden brown .... but the meat was a fair bit cooler and after removing the bird and doing a test cut, was not done all the way through. After 20-30 minutes more at various temperatures, it was done, still not too dry and very tasty.

Other than taking longer than expected, it was great and really simple.